This week it's a poem I taught today, one that made the frat guys in my second class a little uncomfortable (which made it all worthwhile). I can't really complain about them, as they're active in commenting on the poems and sometimes show surprising insight into the work. But still, in the end, they're Sig Eps.

Anyway, tonight's poem is by my old friend Bruce Snider, who should be finishing up his first year as a Jones Lecturer at Stanford soon. This poem is from his book The Year We Studied Women. Enjoy.

A Drag Queen Is Like a Poem

in the same way that a dragqueen is like a womanexcept of course that the womanhas real breasts while the drag queenunbuttons her blouseto reveal the realistic breast formfor cross dressers she’s orderedlike alligator shoesfrom the Gucci catalog.But then it’s not so much shoesthat matter when talking about poetry as it is the hairand jewelry and the waylipstick has been applied.Any teenage girl can tell youthat a good poem needsto wear a short skirt if shewants the boys to notice,and that eye shadow can say just as much as the subtle shadings of anything Keats or Eliotever wrote. The truth isit’s all about truthand beauty, or what passes for it,and so there will always be someoneto argue it doesn’t matterwhat sprouts betweenyour legs like so much mossbetween the paving stones. You canalways just pad or shaveor powder. You can strap on foam tits and a rubber assto remind yourself that the languageof the body can always be rewritten, that ultimately poemis to the poet as dragis to the queen, each wordfitting together like maleand female, like an infantand his mother, two bodiestwo hearts, but onecoming out of the other.